


Forget My Name

by WatchingTVbutItsFire



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Catra's still a cat, Does anyone even know that movie?, Dragon Apocalypse, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I made Shadow Weaver an evil dragon, This is the Reign of Fire AU no one asked for, Will tag if violence gets more explicit, You don't have to know anything about the dragon apocalypse movie to follow this fic, cursing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatchingTVbutItsFire/pseuds/WatchingTVbutItsFire
Summary: Adora chose to fight. Catra chose to stay in hiding, safe from the dragons that reigned the skies. The creatures, finally awoken from their long hibernation, have scorched the earth. Three years ago, Adora joined a group of skydiving dragon hunters called the Angels. Catra, furious with her childhood friend, stayed behind in the underground city called the Fright Zone. But when Adora comes home to visit her friend, the Fright Zone is destroyed and Adora believes Catra dead. Catra, having escaped the massacre, believes Adora abandoned her.Now, Adora and her group of Angels show up at Catra’s new home, asking for help and bringing news: there might be a way to defeat the dragons for good.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

Catra would be damned before she let Angels into the castle. This was her home. She’d been defending this place for three years. Kept everyone fed and clothed and safe from the terrors that reigned the skies. The last time she’d agreed to a meeting with a group of Angels, she’d lost—well, it had felt like she’d lost everything.

But all she’d really lost was her old naivete, her dependence on other people. And that? That was no loss. No one survived long in this ravaged world thinking other people would save them. Ever since that dragon burned her family when she was six, Catra should have known: she was alone.

So. Things were different now. Catra liked the castle. After all, she had invested time and energy into it. But she didn’t _need_ this place. She would survive without it. She just didn’t want to leave it yet.

Which was why she was currently screaming at Scorpia for bringing in an emissary from the group of Angels camped outside.

“They just want to talk, Wildcat.” Scorpia raised her pincers, smiling with a kind of grimace at the pink-haired woman next to her. The woman was wearing those stupid jumpsuits all the Angels wore.

“Hi,” the woman said, with a smile much too cheery for her grimy face and uniform, or the castle itself, or, in fact, this entire gray, sad world. When Catra had used to dream of changing this world for the better, she had dreamed of sunlight. But that dream had died alongside her childhood foolishness. The skies would be dark forever, a legacy of the dragons’ fury, their unquenchable hunger for ash.

Catra considered the smiling pink-haired woman. Her grin was too wide. Her little sparkly hair clip was too bright, even in the dim candlelight. They were gathered in the meeting/ fire-suit storage room. And now welcome committee room. _Every room in this castle was already used for at least two things, why not another?_ Catra thought. The Angels always brought out the worst in Catra.

The woman was talking again, Catra realized—something about needing a place to rest for a few days, a wounded comrade (well of course they were _wounded_ , Catra thought, Angels spent their short lives _wounded_ ), they would trade labor and supplies for the hospitality—but Catra was barely paying attention.

“Scorpia,” Catra said, “you need to repair that one, on the left.” Catra pointed to a fire-suit hanging above the pink lady’s head. “It has scorch marks on the shoulder, you see?”

“Are you serious?” the pink-haired woman said, fuming. “You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said, have you?”

“Maybe we should listen to them,” Scorpia said to Catra gently. “I know we have—kind of a history with Angels, ever since Ado—”

“We don’t need them!” Catra screamed at Scorpia, tail bristling behind her, shoulders hunched up to her ears, which were, she knew, lying flat on her skull. Catra took a few deep breaths in the silence that came after this. “We already don’t have enough food,” she said in a more level voice. “We can’t feed you too.”

“Well if you had been listening,” the pink-haired lady said, “you would know that we already talked about that. We actually were able to harvest quite a bit of food for you already from your fields in the valley.”

“You did what?” Catra said, approaching the woman with claws out. Scorpia held her back with one giant, gleaming claw.

“Catra,” Scorpia said, “they saw that that the fruit was falling off the branches. They knew it needed to be harvested, guessed that we just haven’t had sky-clearance to take a team out yet with our… well, less military resources. They didn’t steal it, they brought it to us. They did us a favor.”

Catra focused on Scorpia’s kind eyes, her reasonable voice. She didn’t want to be mad at Scorpia, at least. She squirmed. “Get off me then,” she said, pushing back from her pincer. “I’m not gunna claw Pink-Hair’s eyes out, okay?” She glared at the woman again. “At least not yet.”

“My name is Glimmer,” the woman said with utmost dignity and without a shred of self-awareness.

Catra cackled. “Your name—your actual name is _Glitter_?” She laughed some more, tears actually forming in her eyes. She had to give it to this lady, she’d made her laugh more than Catra had laughed in—months? Years?

“Glimmer,” the woman reiterated slowly, looking angry again, her thick eyebrows pulling together in fury.

Catra snickered.

“She really doesn’t mean any offense,” Scorpia was saying to the woman. “Catra is the best, most loyal friend—”

“Oh, I really do mean offense,” Catra said, sobering quickly. “So, we’ll take the crops. Thanks, or whatever, now, buh-bye, Sparkles.” Catra waved her hand in a shooing motion.

“That’s the thing, boss.” Scorpia lifted a pincer to the back of her head to scratch it. “I kind of already—said they could bring in their wounded friend? Entrapta’s preparing the clinic right now, and they’re on their way up to—”

“You did _what_?” Catra yelped. Catra pushed past Scorpia and Glimmer, passed the pile of laundry in the entry way, threw up the heavy, wooden bar holding the main doors closed, and pushed the tall castle doors open.

There, parading up the hill to the entrance of the castle, was a _battalion_ of Angels. At least twenty-five people, or a third of the number currently residing in the castle. At the front of the line were several people carrying a stretcher with, Catra guessed, the wounded Angel. “You’re not welcome here! Get the fuck away from my castle!” she screamed, pulled the heavy doors shut behind her, and barred the entrance.

She twirled around to Glimmer, Scorpia trailing behind her. “That is an _army_ , Scorpia!” Catra yelled wildly.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” Glimmer said.

“Their friend needs help, Catra,” Scorpia said, eyes wide and terrified-looking.

Catra realized dimly that behind Scorpia, gathering in the wide entryway, were a group of kids and their parents, murmuring and shooting Catra panicked glances. Normally, the presence of kids would make Catra tone down her voice, at least, but there were Angels at her door, and everyone _should_ be afraid.

“Who cares if they’re hurt?” Catra said. “They’re Angels. They’re all dead already. And they’ll drag all of us down with them!”

Catra felt all of the fear and anger in full force, the fear and anger she’d had with her, inside of her, every day for the last three years since the Angels first destroyed her little world. She leaped at Glimmer, securing her into a headlock with one arm and threatening her jugular with the claws of the other. She dragged Glimmer into the meeting room, and yelled at Scorpia, “Keep that door barred and tell them out there if they try anything their Sparkle friend meets the pointy end of my claws. And we,” Catra snarled to Glimmer, “are going to talk about what you’re really here for.”

Catra pushed the woman through the entryway. It was hard work. She was stronger than she looked, and kicked and screamed the entire way. Catra thought she might have lost her grip if she weren’t so energized by adrenaline and fury. She pushed Glimmer into the wall in front of the rack of fire suits, using the big straps used to keep the suits upright to tie Glimmer onto the rack, which was bolted in the wall. The woman kept squirming and fighting her, and actually got in a bite into Catra’s forearm when she braced it too close to the woman’s mouth.

Catra flinched back, looking at the bite mark on her arm in disgust. Glimmer hadn’t actually broken skin, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Euck, what is wrong with you?” Catra demanded. She finished tying the woman up, making the restraint a little tighter on her left arm than strictly necessary. Catra wiped her forearm on her dirty, tattered shirt.

“Am I diseased now?” Catra said. “Should I get shots?” Catra shook her head. “Right. You’re gunna tell me exactly what your plan is here, and why you showed up. Because Scorpia may have bought your precious little story about a wounded friend, but I know Angels, and I know they’d never bother to help a fallen comrade. I mean, come on, isn’t that what you all do anyway?” Catra made a vicious gesture toward the ground. “Fall?”

Catra sat on the edge of the big meeting table. She crossed her legs, then her arms, and looked at Glimmer in disdain.

Glimmer said nothing. She was still struggling against the restraints.

“So what is it you’re really after?” Catra tried again. “Here to take more of my people? Recruit some kids into your death cult?”

A voice came from the entryway, one Catra didn’t recognize. Or, scratch that, one Catra recognized too well, one that couldn’t possibly be—

“Glimmer?” came the impossible voice. “Is that you I heard? I thought I heard—I thought—”

The voice broke off abruptly, and Catra watched Glimmer’s eyes look up at the newcomer.

Catra whipped around, already yelling at Scorpia. “I told you to keep the door—”

Catra’s words were swallowed up by the sight of her. A blonde, tall figure, clad in that same ridiculous jumpsuit. _Her hair’s wrong_ , Catra thought illogically, at the sight of her golden hair falling just beneath her jawline. She used to wear it long, when Catra knew her, tied up in a ponytail. Her eyes were the same, though, even if she did have a new scar on her cheek, running from her eyebrow nearly to the corner of her mouth.

Catra tumbled down off the table, her back to her own hostage, distantly realizing she had made some noise in the back of her throat. Catra lifted her own hand to her eyebrow, tracing a line down her own face, a mirror of the one in front of her.

 _It’s not,_ Catra thought. _It can’t be._

But it was.

“Catra,” the woman said in a sob. Her eyes were already red, tears streaming down her face. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, blinked, refocused.

“Catra,” she said again, “it’s—is it you?” Her voice had gone impossibly soft and small, sounding like she had as a child.

Catra couldn’t speak. She felt her tail flick side-to-side behind her.

As if her tail’s movement was some kind of signal, the blonde rushed into movement all at once, taking the whole of the room in a handful of long, hurried strides, and embraced Catra with such strength that she pushed them both into the table behind them.

She smelled like gasoline, and soil. She pulled away just a little to take Catra’s face in between her hands. “It’s you, isn’t it? Catra, how—you’re really here, aren’t you?” Her voice had turned into a demand, clearly expecting an answer Catra couldn’t give. But she didn’t stop cradling Catra’s face in her hands, moving her fingertips to her hairline, to the tips of her ears— _no one has touched my ears in three years_ , Catra thought. It was as if the woman didn’t trust her sense of sight and needed another sense to confirm Catra’s existence.

She took one of Catra’s hands in both of her own. She squeezed Catra’s fingers, utterly oblivious—or indifferent to—the danger of Catra’s sharp claws. And that was when Catra knew for sure, without a doubt, that this wasn’t some trick. This was no hallucination, no dream. It was really her.

She was sobbing openly now, still saying Catra’s name, still asking if it’s really her, until she grew agitated by Catra’s silence and pulled back to take Catra by the shoulders. “Catra, answer me. It’s me. It’s Adora.”

* * *

The last place Adora had wanted to go was the castle. Adora resisted any plan that included meeting new people, as new people were both a risk and an irritation. Adora preferred to be in the chopper, or in the sky. Feeling the air whip her face, a weapon in her hands, her enemy finally within reach. People, in general, were a nuisance. When they weren’t outright criminals, grifters trying to steal what little the Angels had, they were begging for their protection. They should have known that Adora was the last person in the world who could protect them.

The only people who Adora actually liked, in fact, were Glimmer and Bow. The first and only friends Adora had made after her entire world was taken from her three years ago. Adora would have died, then, if they hadn’t taken pity on her and watched over her. They forced her to eat, forced her to talk, forced her to keep living. They gave her a purpose, and Adora learned that even though she had already lost everything, there was some grim satisfaction from exacting revenge on the monsters that had taken her.

But Bow had gotten wounded after the last kill. And it was Adora’s fault. Visibility was so bad that Mermista, from the pilot seat, had advised them against the jump, but Adora had gone anyway. And then, because Bow and Glimmer were too loyal, too sweet, and much too good for her, they had jumped after Adora, too. Adora had gotten the first net around the dragon, but it wasn’t enough. This one was big, its wingspan better measured in building lengths than in feet, and it had struggled just enough under the netting that its giant pointed wing had clipped Bow in the abdomen. Glimmer had just barely reached him to pull both his and her own parachutes in time. Adora had handled the dragon herself, blasting it down as the two of them were still falling through the sky, Adora and another of her endless enemy.

So Adora had no choice. Bow needed medical attention immediately. They would go to the castle.

It was Glimmer’s idea to harvest their crops for them as a show of good faith. Adora helped of course, grumbling all the time.

“What’s wrong with these people?” she said to Glimmer sourly. “Were they just waiting for someone to come do this for them?”

“They’re scared,” Glimmer said reasonably. “They probably don’t know how to fight them.”

“Cowards,” Adora said, ripping an apple from the tree so fiercely the whole branch shook. Glimmer sent her a reproachful look.

“Sorry,” Adora said. “I just—” She shook her head, feeling the sting in her eyes. She brought her hand up to clasp the little broken toy sword hanging from her neck. “Don’t understand. Don’t they see they can’t hide from them?” She looked up at the sky. “They’ll always find us. Always. As long as their Prime is alive, we can never be safe.”

Glimmer laid a hand on Adora’s arm, and then rested her head on Adora’s shoulder. “I know,” she said gently. She lifted her head after a moment and elbowed Adora lightly in the side. “Just, don’t start any fistfights this time, okay?”

Adora grimaced. “Sorry. I won’t.” She put an arm around her friend. “And don’t worry, Glimmer. Bow’s gunna be just fine.” She bit back her next words, the _I promise_ she wanted to punctuate her sentence.

Adora knew better now. This world turned all promises to ash.

Adora wasn’t exactly surprised when the people in the castle were less than friendly. Most people still living in this hellish, terrifying world were cruel. Those who weren’t hadn’t made it this long.

But she was still furious. Bow was hurt. He needed help now. And they had harvested their crops for them, because they were too pitiful to go out and do it themselves. What were they going to do, wait in their castle to starve to death?

Adora was already preparing to burst through the castle doors herself when she heard the yelling. The voice sounded familiar. Familiar in a way that made Adora’s heart clench. She breathed through the feeling. _She’s not here,_ she told herself. _You lost her._

But then Adora watched as a figure hefted the castle doors open, yelled down at their small encampment, furious. Adora couldn’t pay attention to the words. She was dazed by the figure—the tail, the pointed ears—the raspy voice. It can’t be. _It can’t be._

But she had to know. She told Frosta to watch Bow and sprinted up the stairs to pound on the wooden doors. “Hello? Hello is someone there? I thought I saw—” She shook her head. “Please, I’m not gunna hurt anyone, can you let me—”

The door opened. An amiable, well-muscled woman welcomed her in with the sweep of a red claw.

“Thanks,” Adora said, “My friend Glimmer came in here a minute ago, and then I thought I heard—was there someone—”

A voice from the other room squeaked, and then, furious: “Euck, what is wrong with you?”

Adora knew that voice. She hurried toward it without thought, without hesitation.

But the woman was in her way. “I’m Scorpia,” she said, in a bright voice. “But I really can’t let you just traipse through the castle. Catra’s orders.”

Adora reached up to shake the woman by her shoulders. “What did you say?” she demanded.

Scorpia shrugged her off. “Look, I don’t know normally say this, but I’m getting bad vibes from you and—”

“What name did you say?” Adora demanded.

The woman huffed. “Scorpia.”

“No, no, _no!_ ” Adora said, getting in the woman’s face. “You said another name. Who were you talking about?”

The voice echoed down from the hall again.

“Catra?” Scorpia called to it.

Adora needed no further incentive. She ducked underneath Scorpia’s claw and raced through the entryway and into what looked like a meeting room. She nearly tripped on a pile of laundry—was no one organized here?—in her haste.

She saw Glimmer first, tied up on the wall, and then—the back of a woman’s head. The same pointed ears, the same tail. The same figure, so much smaller in reality than she was in Adora’s imagination.

The woman turned as Adora made some kind of sound—and it was her. It was her _completely_. Her face, her blue and gold eyes, her pointed chin, her long, wild hair.

Adora should have thought she had lost her mind, probably, but she didn’t. She knew all at once that it was really her, that somehow this horrible, relentless world had spared Adora’s best friend, her greatest loss, the first person who had ever wanted Adora.

Catra.

Adora felt her heart break open as she took Catra in her arms, needing to feel her alive. It was nothing like the dream, or a memory. She was warm, and trembling, and her shirt was soft from wear. Adora was crying, big heaving sobs. She wanted to hear Catra’s voice again, wanted to hear confirmation that this was really happening. She realized that she must be babbling too much for Catra to understand her, that she would have to calm down. 

Adora pulled back and met Catra’s eyes once again. Adora breathed, in and out. “Catra, answer me. It’s me. It’s Adora.”

Catra shoved away from Adora, sending both of them stumbling away from the other. Catra’s chest was heaving, her expression shocked, panicked even. She stared at Adora for several long seconds, and then she stood up straight, lifted her chin, and smirked with the same fanged smile Adora had loved all her life. “Yeah,” Catra said, “I remember your name.”

Adora was so happy to hear her voice again, so happy to see her, so _happy_ , that she didn’t process the bitterness in Catra’s tone. Adora grinned and reached for her again.

Catra retreated, and this time Adora saw fear in her eyes. Adora pulled her own arm into her chest.

“Catra?” she said, uncertain.

“Can’t believe you bothered to remember _my_ name,” Catra said. She folded her arms across her chest.

“What?” Adora said, aghast. She laughed, a little, no humor in it. “Yeah, like I would forget your name, Catra.” Adora said her name again just for the pleasure of addressing her.

“I figured you had forgotten everything,” Catra drawled, looking at her hand, fingers splayed in front of her as she considered her claws. She used her other hand to wipe something off her middle finger’s claw, and then looked back up at Adora. “But maybe you just didn’t care.” The words were hard, accusing. Catra’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Didn’t care?” Adora said, pulling her hands into fists at either side to stop herself from reaching out to Catra again. “What are you talking about?”

Catra rubbed her claws on her collarbone, as if polishing them, and then crossed her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall behind her, bending one knee to brace herself. “I mean, I just figured you’d forgotten everything from your boring little life once you left and joined them.” Her eyes flicked over to Glimmer. “I’ll admit, even I thought you’d show up after the Fright Zone was razed, but I should have known better. You’d told me you were done with that place. Should have known a little massacre wouldn’t get in the way of your _dreams_.” She said the last word with naked disdain.

Adora was speechless. The fact of Catra, Catra alive, Catra whole and breathing and perfect, was already too much. She couldn’t even imagine how they could be together again and Catra could be _mad_.

“Catra, I’m sorry,” Adora started, the old instinct to comfort returning all at once, “I think you’re confused about something, I—”

“The only thing I’m confused about—” Catra propelled herself away from the wall, stalking toward Adora. “Is how you’d dare show your face here.”

“What?” Adora breathed. “Catra what are you talking about? I’m just so happy to see—”

“You left me there.” Catra pressed a sharp claw into Adora’s chest. “I waited for you. I waited months for you!”

“Leave you?” Adora said. She was so lost she could do little more than repeat Catra’s words. She couldn’t stop running her eyes over Catra in amazement. She wanted to laugh, despite Catra’s anger. She felt like she and Catra were living in separate dimensions, side by side, able to see but not touch. Hear, but not understand. She wanted to take Catra by the shoulders and shake sense into her. Didn’t she know nothing else mattered? She was _alive_. “I didn’t leave you anywhere,” Adora said.

“Is that right?” Catra’s words were acidic. “Guess I just imagined being stuck in that cave for three months.”

“You were—why were you…?” Adora’s mind was reeling. She hadn’t let herself dwell on that time for so long. Finding the Fright Zone gone, the sword in the ashes, the grief that had taken her, stripped her body down to bone.

“Get out,” Catra said, not meeting Adora’s eyes, her voice rough.

Adora took a step back. She wished Catra would just throw a punch, that they could tussle and fight it out like they used to as kids. Anything but this.

“Take your Angels and leave before you get us all killed.” Catra walked forward, and Adora’s heart leapt, despite everything, but Catra was only getting closer to Adora because she was between Catra and the door. Catra stopped at the doorway. “And don’t look at me like that,” she said, tearing her eyes away from Adora’s. “I don’t know what you were thinking coming here.”

“What I was thinking?” Adora cried. “I thought you were _dead_.” Her voice broke. Some part of her had realized that Catra didn’t know this fact, as obvious, as present and real as gravity. “I never would have left you. Never. Catra, I’ve missed you. So much. I—Catra.” Adora didn’t know how to explain that Catra’s death broke her heart. Wasn’t it obvious?

Catra stopped. Her tail flicked, back and forth, swatting the door frame. “You’re lying. Get your people out. You’re nothing to me now. You were dead to me a long time ago.” She was snarling now, a menace Adora had never heard directed at her before. She turned to leave, stopped, turned her face halfway to Adora without meeting her eyes. “You better forget my name now,” she hissed. “If I hear you say it again, I’ll kill you myself.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me reading the last chapter over: are there any DRAGONS in this DRAGON FIC? 
> 
> Don't worry, this chapter does. XD Hope you enjoy!
> 
> CW: This chapter has pretty mild dragon-related violence and brief description of a wound.

Adora had been alone for months before she met Catra the first time. She was ten years old. Unlike Catra, she had never had parents. The orphanage told her that her parents left her on their doorstep, like a child in a fairy tale. It had not been a cruel place, but it had been a lonely one. Adora had always wanted a best friend, something she had read about in her adventure books, but no one had ever wanted her back. A needy child, her minders called her. She had tried to be better, but she had never figured out how to stop needing.

The orphanage survived the dragon’s wake from their long slumber for years. And then, on a day like any other, Adora went out to play in the forest by herself. She returned to the orphanage and found only ash. She didn’t look through the wreckage for survivors, and she never returned to it.

Adora had been looking out for herself all her life, and that, at least, didn’t change after the orphanage was destroyed. She spent her time “hunting” and hiding. She called her searches for food “hunting” because she had a bad feeling that if she didn’t think of it like that, she would have to think of it as stealing. As for hiding—she hid from everything. From the dragons, first and always, but from other people, too. Adora quickly learned to be as wary of other people as she was of the dragons.

And then, one day as Adora was travelling through the forest, she spotted a girl with a tail and two fluffy ears climbing a tree. Adora had been on her way to the next town over, knowing to avoid the roads in order to stay hidden. She hadn’t seen another person for weeks. Her first instinct was to run, so she did that, at first, but she kept thinking about the girl, who had climbed the tree like it was nothing. She seemed strong, and Adora wanted to be strong. Plus, the girl had been really cute.

So Adora circled around and started following the girl. She watched her eat a can of something from her perch in the tree. The girl leapt from the tree, landing gracefully on her feet, and began walking through the forest.

Adora was tracking her for no more than an hour when she lost the trail. The girl _had_ been easy to follow. It had rained last night, and the earth was forgiving enough to maintain the girl’s distinctive footprints. But they had disappeared all at once.

Adora was fighting back tears when a voice cut through the silent forest.

“Why are you following me?”

Adora spun, and found the girl behind her, tail bushy, claws out, hands held out before her as if ready to shield herself from Adora’s attack.

Adora grinned. “I thought I lost you.”

The girl frowned. Her eyes, to Adora’s delight, were two different colors. Gold and blue.

“You don’t know who I am,” she said.

“I want to,” Adora said.

“I don’t want to know you,” the girl said, and started walking.

Adora followed.

The next time the girl stopped, she spun around and marched right up to Adora, and once they were nose to nose, she demanded: “Why?”

“Why what?” Adora said, a little scared of the girl for the first time.

The girl seemed to notice Adora’s fear and backed off. “Why are you following me?” She waited for Adora’s answer with intent, wide eyes. She was shorter than Adora, but her hair, wild and huge, nearly made up the difference.

Adora considered. _Because I want a best friend_ , she wanted to say. But that had never worked at the orphanage. “We’re the same age,” Adora settled on. “We should stick together.”

Whatever answer the girl had been waiting so intently for, that wasn’t it. She spun around and leapt into the trees.

The third time the girl stopped, she said nothing. She waited for Adora to approach.

Adora, fumbling through her knapsack, knowing instinctively that she couldn’t mess up this third meeting, brought out her most prized possession. It was a miniature sword she had found in the woods in the first days after the dragons woke from their long hibernation. The sword was so shiny it seemed to glow in the sunlight. The hilt was ornate, the guard flourished in elegant twists of metal. The entire length of it fit snugly in Adora’s palm. The blade was dull, but from the beginning Adora had pretended it was a real sword, shrunk by some dark magic. She believed it had been keeping her safe, as nothing and no one else had, so she gave it all the love she couldn’t give to anyone else.

“Here,” Adora said. “Take it. Good luck charm.”

The girl looked at the sword, back up at Adora.

“What’s your name?” Adora said again. Then, realizing that question was what made the girl run away last time, Adora said, “I’m Adora.” She was still holding the little shiny sword in the palm of her hand.

The girl met her eyes, mouthed _Adora_ , like she was memorizing it, and furrowed her brows. “You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” Adora said, petulant. “I’ve been in the woods for months.”

The girl threw her head back and cackled. “ _Months_?” She bent over at the waist to laugh some more, and then, straightening, wiped her eyes with her knuckles and said, “You’re an idiot.”

Adora was so happy to see her laugh that she forgot she was supposed to be offended. She stared, replying with nothing other than a relieved smile.

The girl grabbed the sword from Adora’s hand. “I’m watching the ground,” the girl said. “You watch the sky.”

And the girl was gone again.

* * *

“Stop what you’re doing,” Catra said, bursting into the storeroom where Scorpia was taking stock. “Let’s harvest the potatoes. If I have to spend another minute stuck in here with the Angels, I’m gunna throw one off the parapet. See if they can fly, _then_.”

“I’d like to do that!” Scorpia said, chipper as ever. “But you know well as I do that we haven’t gotten clearance this week. It would be dangerous.” She turned to give Catra a sympathetic grimace. “And I am sorry about the Angels. I knew you’d let them stay anyway!” She grinned.

“Yeah, well—” Catra cut off, looking down, embarrassed. “Anyway, we’ll be fine in the fields. Haven’t seen anything since last week.”

“Yeah, but the scouts saw the fallow field torched last week. They’re close.”

Scorpia’s bluntness pulled Catra short. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll find someone else.”

Catra twirled around only to run in one of the Angels. “Watch it,” she snarled, shoving them into the wall.

“I know your energy is unbalanced right now, but that is no excuse for violence!” the woman yelled to Catra as she left.

“I’ll show you violence,” Catra grumbled. The castle was bursting with people since the Angels had shown up last week. They were rude, and loud, and full of questions. Every time Catra went anywhere, one of them was asking about bathrooms or beds or food. Their stuff was everywhere, and they had left dirty dishes in the kitchen. Their wounded friend was still much too weak to be moved. His injuries had been serious. He was lucky to be alive. But he had pulled through Entrapta’s surgery well. At least, Catra was fairly sure that’s what Entrapta had meant.

Entrapta. Maybe Catra could convince her to go out to the fields. She had wanted to try out her new and improved fire-safe truck. As a matter of fact, Catra wanted to try it out, too. Catra headed to the clinic.

She found Entrapta checking the Angel’s wounds. “Chance of infection is high,” she said. “Extremely high. Eighty percent or more.”

“Wait, what?” the guy on the bed said, sitting up fast. The movement must have hurt him because he winced and put his hand over the bandage on his side.

“Whoa.” Catra pushed him back down. “Don’t go opening your stitches, Angel Boy. You and your friends will never leave. And we have medicine for infection, so chill.”

“Aw,” he said, lying back. “You do care! I knew if you were Adora’s friend—”

“She’s no friend of mine,” Catra snarled.

The smile didn’t completely leave his eyes, despite Catra’s harshness. She sighed.

“Entrapta,” Catra said. “Just tie this one up or something.” She hefted a thumb over her shoulder in Bow’s direction. “Let’s try out the truck in the potato fields.”

“Potato fields?” A voice said from the entryway. “Are you harvesting?”

Adora. Of course.

She entered the clinic carrying a big tray of medical instruments and supplies. She was carrying so much that Catra couldn’t see her face. She had finally taken off that stupid jumpsuit. She was wearing something sleeveless now that revealed a big scar running up her bicep. The scar did not mar the beauty of the sculpted muscle. Catra looked away.

“Food for us,” Catra said when she could speak. “Don’t think you all are gunna eat all of this harvest, too.”

“Adora!” Bow said happily from the bed.

“Oo!” Entrapta said, noticing what Adora had brought. “Thank you!” she squealed. “Kyle takes at least five trips to bring all these.”

“Ha!” Adora said, setting the tray down on Entrapta’s workbench and straightening. She pushed her short hair behind her ear and beamed at Catra, a full Adora-grin, sunlight and red cheeks. One of her incisors was chipped. Catra hadn’t noticed that yet. It tugged at something tender and scared in Catra’s chest. “Kyle made it out of the Fright Zone too?” Adora said. “Wow.”

“Glad you care about _Kyle’s_ fate,” Catra said.

Adora had moved to sit at the end of Bow’s bed. She handed him a water. “Well sure, yeah,” Adora said amiably. “How are you?” Adora’s eyes roved over her, as if checking her person for injuries.

“I’m _fantastic_ ,” Catra said, sharp with sarcasm. “I love sleeping ten to a room.”

“I’ll pay you back for this,” Adora said, still sitting at the end of his bed. “For helping us—”

“Stop.” Catra lifted her hands. “Entrapta, come on, let’s go.”

“You’re going out there right now?” Adora said, jumping up and splashing water all over Bow in the process. “Sorry!” she said to him. She reached Catra’s side. “I’ll come with.”

“I don’t think so,” Catra said.

“Catra,” Entrapta said, “I can’t go right now. I have an experiment that cannot be stopped. You can take out the truck, though, as long as you tell me everything.”

“Then I’ll go myself,” Catra said.

Adora blocked her path to the door. “What?” she said. “No way.”

“What do you not understand?” Catra said. “I don’t want you out there with me. I don’t want to see you.”

Adora sighed. “Ca—” She cut herself off. “Sorry.” She paused, grinned again. “I’ll just be backup then, okay? You won’t see me at all—I’ll follow on the ground! You watch the ground, I watch the skies, right?”

Catra closed her eyes against the onslaught of memories that evoked.

“Do what you want,” Catra said. “It has nothing to do with me.”

Catra let Adora into the truck.

It was a short trip to the fields, a trip Adora seemed to feel the need to fill with chatter.

“So you’ve never taken this out before? Wow.” She looked around, although there was nothing whatsoever impressive about how the pick-up truck looked on the inside. “The plating on this thing looks great. We’ve tried to plate the choppers, but honestly we’re not sure if it would do much good anyway, the blades can’t be plated, and if they’re down, then you’re down, too, you know?”

“You sound just like the rest of them.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Adora said.

“Everything.”

Adora rolled her eyes. “I really think you’d like Bow and Glimmer if you got to know them. They’re sweet and smart and really great at what they do, you know?”

“Oh sure, falling out of a plane,” Catra said. “Sounds really hard.”

“Ha!” Adora said, smirking. She puffed up her chest. “Sure, if falling out of a plane while you’re netting a dragon sounds easy.”

Catra clenched the steering wheel.

“Anyway,” Adora said, watching Catra, “Glimmer’s the one who discovered Prime last spring.”

“Prime?” Catra said.

“Yeah,” Adora said, effusive once again, “that’s what’s so exciting, Ca—”

“I _told_ you—”

“Okay, okay, sorry!” Adora said, “it’s that we found a way to beat them. Like for real.” She paused, as if waiting for Catra to gasp or clap or something.

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Catra said. “Your jokes were never good, but this is just sad.”

“I mean it,” Adora said. “Glimmer actually _saw_ him. We had a lead on the location of his nest. Actually, that’s why we’re in the area. You won’t believe this, remember—?”

“Him?” Catra interrupted, not interested in remembering anything. “They’re all female.”

“That’s what we all thought, right?” Adora sat up, using her hands to gesture, her eyes lighting up with her excitement. _She left you_ , Catra told herself. “But we started noticing that even after we took down ten, twenty more, they’d just keep coming in. We’d return to towns we’d left and they’d be swarming with them, like a flock of fucking _birds_ in the sky _—_ ”

Catra flinched, not at Adora’s cursing but at the rage, the hate in Adora’s voice. She’d never heard her sound like that.

“And we knew that they had to be reproducing. There had to be a male.”

“Your friend never heard of lesbians before, huh?” Catra said dryly.

Adora laughed, the sound sudden and bright. The sound was so familiar to Catra, even after years without it. Catra wanted to tell her to stop, to never laugh like that again, but she didn’t know how to do it in a way that would forestall Adora asking her _why_.

“Reproducing,” Adora said, still chortling. “Not uh—mating or whatever,” she mumbled.

“Okay, so let’s say you’re not wrong,” Catra started, needing to veer the conversation away from _mating or whatever_ , “and these things haven’t figured out reproduction without a male. So why haven’t you taken him down yet?”

Adora’s face fell. “That’s the problem. He’s—huge. Bigger than ten of them.”

Catra’s eyes widened. She gulped and looked over at Adora before she could think better of it.

“Yeah,” Adora said. “I know. But don’t worry. We have a plan. That’s actually—”

Catra lifted a hand. “I don’t want to hear about your next suicide mission.” Catra tried to keep her voice even, she really did. But the words came out with all the old bitterness.

“Okay.” Adora lapsed into silence for a few moments as Catra eased the truck through a particularly bumpy patch. “How long have you been here? In the castle?”

“Two and a half years.”

“Oh.” Adora was working her mouth back and forth. “I’m glad—I’m so glad you’ve found a nice place. That you’ve been safe and—the castle is really great.”

“Don’t, Adora,” Catra said. “I know how pathetic you think we are, hiding in the dark, starving and filthy and freezing.” She cut her eyes to Adora. “But we stay alive. I know it might not be the fun adventure that you’ve been having—but we look out for each other here.”

“I don’t—” Adora cut off, tried again. “You think I’ve been having _fun_?”

It wasn’t at all what Catra expected her to say. She didn’t look over at Adora in the passenger seat. She didn’t want to see the big blue eyes that Catra could never unentangle with the ones shining up out of ten-year-old Adora’s eyes in Catra’s memory—scared and trusting.

“It’s what you always wanted,” Catra said. “To be an Angel. To save the world.” She put as much vitriol as she could find within herself into that word, made it the epithet it was.

“I didn’t have _anything_ I wanted,” Adora said, the words filled with sadness instead of the anger Catra wanted.

Catra stewed on that in silence for several long minutes as they rattled down the last of the dirt path. How dare she be unhappy. She chose this. She chose to leave.

Catra slammed the breaks harder than necessary, feeling viciously pleased by the way the jerking halt made Adora lurch in her seat.

“You take that side, I’ll take over here.” Catra pointed to one side of the path and then the other.

“We should stick together,” Adora said. “Whenever we go on a run, we—”

“These are my fields,” Catra said. “We cover more ground if we go separate.”

“Okay,” Adora said. “Why don’t you stay here while I get out, scope out the area, make—”

“Enough with the hero routine,” Catra snaps, throwing open the door. She should have at least scoped out the skies first, shouldn’t be stomping around, asking for an attack.

Catra growled, low in her throat, and stalked off, only to realize that she hadn’t grabbed her helmet. Well, she wasn’t going to go back and get it now. That would be humiliating. It’s not like it would protect her from much. If a dragon attacked, she was dead anyway. Better to not have the restriction.

“Stay close!” Adora called as Catra walked into the fields. Catra didn’t turn around as she walked away. She would start at the far end of the field, then.

Potato harvesting was miserable work. The earth was dry and hard, and as many times as Catra had done this, it didn’t make the earth any more forgiving. Catra’s arm rang from the impact of each strike. She had to stomp her foot onto the spade’s edge to send it far enough down to reach the deepest part of the plant. Then she had to crouch down and dig with her gloved hands, pulling the tubers out one by one, root by root, as her thoughts spiraled, each shovel’s impact echoing the jolting pain of each of her thoughts—Adora’s _here_. Shovel. _Adora’s_ here. Stomp.

Somewhere between the twentieth and thirtieth strike of her shovel, Catra let herself acknowledge the feeling she hadn’t been able to look at before: relief. _Adora’s here._

She knew, as soon as Adora first talked about the Angels, that they would kill her sooner rather than later. Everyone knew this. It was a truth as inescapable as the fact of the dragons, as the darkened skies. So Catra knew that when Adora first left, she would never come back. But then Catra discovered after the attack on the Fright Zone that Adora was, in fact, alive, despite her best attempts at getting herself killed, and Catra realized it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if Adora was, technically, still living. If she stayed with the Angels, she would die. Everyone knew this.

But now Adora was here and Catra was furious. She was furious because Adora left, furious because she was with the Angels still, furious because she dared to intrude on the pathetic life Catra had carved out for herself. And under all of that anger, was a dizzying, terrifying feeling of _relief_. Catra felt lighter than she had in years. Because Catra hadn’t heard detailed news about the Angels for two years. And as more time passed without any word, Catra knew it was more and more likely that the girl who had been her best friend was gone for good. But no. Adora had done the impossible, and survived for years with them. She was alive.

And approaching her now. Catra was crouching, following the delicate roots through the soil to look for another potato, but not finding anything. This wasn’t good. The crops had been yielding less and less, and this harvest was no different from the last two she had seen. There was only so much they could do with so little sunlight. She kept digging, kept searching, as Adora loomed over her.

“Get bored?” Catra said. “Not thrilling enough for you?”

“Not at all!” Adora said, the chipper pang of her voice setting Catra’s teeth on edge. “I just—well I—” Adora kept talking, but despite Entrapta’s improvements to the suits, it was still hard to hear people through them. Catra tuned out until she heard: “Do you have something else growing over there that looks like the potato leaves above the ground?”

“It’s all potatoes over there.” Catra was still raking her gloved hands through the dirt. More roots. The tendrils were sticking to the fire-suit’s fabric. She flicked them off her fingers without looking, and if they happened to land on Adora’s feet, well then she shouldn’t have been standing so close.

“Ah.”

Catra sensed Adora fidgeting behind her, shifting her weight.

“You’re in my light,” Catra said. It was an obvious lie—there was no direct sunlight anymore, and Adora’s position near her didn’t change the diffused light one way or another.

Adora still shuffled over to stand in front of Catra, instead. “Look,” she said, holding out the fire-suit helmet. “I had to walk by the truck, and I noticed you forgot yours.”

Catra snorted. “You’re all about safety now, huh?”

“Please.” Adora crouched down to place the helmet next to Catra. “Just take it.”

“I’m _good_ , Adora.”

Adora huffed.

“I know _yours_ are useless,” Catra said, twitching her ears. “But _my_ ears can hear a dragon from the next ridge over.”

Adora sighed. “Then what about the plants over there?”

Catra stood, propping herself up with the shovel, and moved to the next plant. “What?”

“What I told you before,” Adora said. “About the plants.”

“I couldn’t hear a single thing you said,” Catra said.

Adora pulled the helmet off her head. Catra looked up, struck by the sight of her face once again. The scar that lined her cheek hadn’t healed well. It must have been painful. But it wasn’t just the scar and the haircut that made her look different. (Although the scar did somehow highlight the cut of her cheekbone, the hair did make her jawline seem sharper.) She looked older, Catra realized. She was thinner, and it made her face fiercer. Her eyes were the same blue, and Catra felt caught in them like she always had, but there was something new there, too. A flinty, unyielding something. Catra wondered if her own eyes had the same thing.

“It does feel better off,” Adora said, wiping her brow and leaving a trail of dirt across her forehead. Catra tried to tell herself it made her look stupid, but she got distracted by the sight of soil caught in her strands of light hair.

Catra focused on shoveling.

“There aren’t any potatoes,” Adora said softly, gently. “Under the plants over there.”

“If you can’t figure out how to dig up potatoes,” Catra said, “I don’t have the time to teach you. Just sit in the truck and wait till I’m done.”

“I know how to—” Adora started, irritation seeping into her tone. Catra felt a thrill. Adora had been annoyingly patient. It was nice to know she could still rile her up. Adora sighed. “I didn’t miss them. There aren’t any. Just roots. I think—I’m worried about how many of the crops failed.”

Catra swallowed. “No. These are fine over here.” She kicked the basket of potatoes. It wasn’t really true—the little soil-covered tubers were all smaller than baseballs, some of them half that size. These kind had been two, three times as big last season.

“There wasn’t anything like that over there.” Adora’s voice was still unbearably gentle, her eyes insufferably soft.

“Fine,” Catra yelled and flung the shovel to the ground.

The sound made Adora startle. She scanned the skies, a slow, steady, practiced motion, the same way she always had.

Catra picked up the basket of potatoes, and then remembered she still should take the shovel with her, too. If she was going to go over there to show Adora how to dig, she might as well start working that side. “You take that,” she said to Adora, as if that had been her plan all along.

Catra flung the potatoes into the big bin in the truck and slammed the door shut, causing Adora to do her sky-scan again, and took off for the far field. She followed the line of discarded leafy plants, trying to figure out how Adora could miss the potatoes.

“So it was fine up until right there,” Adora said, pointing ahead, the shovel slung over her shoulder and struggling to keep pace with Catra.

Catra smirked. There was no reason for someone so tall to be so slow.

“And here,” Adora said as they reached the spot, “they just stopped. Nothing.”

Catra crouched down and started digging, expanding the hole. “This must be the wrong spot. Where was the plant?” She picked up a discarded leafy branch, examined its long system of roots with—no potatoes. “And why are you tearing off the plant from the roots? You have to follow it down.”

Adora shook her head. “I did. That’s it.”

Catra moved on to the next space, and the next, the truth of it settling in. Adora was right. Catra kept going, checking every plant down the line, needing to know the extent of it. At some point, Adora started digging the next row. Catra knew what her silence meant.

When Catra reached the end of the row, she sat down in the dirt and held her head in her hands, worn out by the exertion, by the gravity of the realization.

Catra had no sense of how long she sat there before Adora sat nearby, silent, steady.

“Come to gloat?” Catra felt hollowed out. She was hungry, she realized, almost laughing at the irony.

“Of course not,” Adora said, in the same comforting voice.

Catra was in no mood to be comforted.

“This proves your point, doesn’t it?” Catra flung a sad, empty potato plant in Adora’s direction. “We can’t stay here. You’ve won, haven’t you?”

Adora just looked at her, eyes steady and sad and so bright. What would it have been like, if they had had a better world to live in? What could they have been like?

“You should be happy!” Catra screamed, her throat already hurting. “You won! You were right! It’s hopeless to try to make a home here. We won’t make it through the winter.”

Adora picked herself up and stood beside Catra, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“Something that makes you upset would never make me happy, Catra,” Adora said.

At that, Catra flung off Adora’s hand and stood so they were nose-to-nose. “Stop using my name.” She shoved Adora hard enough that she had to stumble to stay standing.

“Fine,” Adora snapped, sharp. There it was, her anger. That’s what Catra wanted. But Adora’s face softened in the next moment. “Okay. You can be mad. But at least let me tell you what happened.”

“I know what happened.”

“No, you don’t!” Adora approached her again, getting close. “I came back for you as soon as I could—as soon as I heard. And I—” She reached under the lip of the suit’s collar, reaching down her front and pulled out—Catra couldn’t believe it. It was the sword. The little toy metal sword, broken long ago, that Catra had found a chain for. Adora held jagged edge of the broken blade from her fingertips. Their good luck charm.

“I found the sword,” Adora continued, still holding it between them. “It was in our barracks. There were—” Adora’s face darkened. “Remains. Unrecognizable. I looked through them, but I—I couldn’t tell anything. All I could find was this. I knew—I _thought_ I knew that you’d never leave it.”

All Catra could do was look at Adora’s haggard face. She had gone back after the attack. She had tried to find her.

“Even then,” Adora said, swallowing, fixing Catra with her steady gaze, “I found the survivors. You weren’t there. No one had seen you. I—everyone was sure you were gone. How could I know?”

 _You should have known_ , Catra thought, and the vehemence of the thought convinced her, in the moment, that it was reasonable. _You should have known_.

Catra was breathing so hard her chest ached.

“How did you lose the sword?” Adora said, looking into the distance. “I thought—I was so sure when I found it that…”

“The sword doesn’t matter,” Catra said, looking away from it, not wanting to think about her guilt, about what would have happened if— “You should have found me after.”

“The cave?” Adora said.

“Yes, the cave,” Catra said, her voice getting loud again. “We promised. We _promised_ we’d meet there if we got separated.”

“The Crystal Cave?” Adora said, using their old nickname. It wasn’t even a cave—nothing more than an old abandoned building, magical only through children’s naïve, desperate eyes. “In the woods?” Adora said, eyes wide. “But that was… we hadn’t used the cave in _years_.”

“Don’t you dare pretend you didn’t know.” Catra’s voice was shaking. “Admit it. You saw a chance and you took it.”

“What are you talking about?” At least Adora was mad now, too, her face red, her eyes sparking. At least Adora was feeling a fraction of what Catra had felt.

“You were desperate to leave,” Catra said. “You didn’t want to find me.”

Catra had survived this long in life by being ready for anything. At six, she escaped her first dragon attack. At ten, she saved an idiotic blonde girl from being roasted by another dragon. At sixteen, she heard a group of would-be thieves before they could get close enough to steal the rest of her and Adora’s food.

But she wasn’t ready for Adora to tackle her to the ground.

They rolled in the dirt, Catra trying to pin her down. She, did, for a moment, only for Adora to pull her hair, making Catra yelp and lose her balance, and Adora rolling them over once again. They were both grappling with the other’s wrists, hands. But Adora was strong, maybe even stronger than she had been the last time they were together. Eventually she got hold of both Catra’s wrists and held her there.

They were both heaving, glaring at the other. Catra was still trying to wriggle out of Adora’s hold even as she knew it was useless.

“Real mature, Adora,” she said, out of breath.

Adora’s glare got deeper, the line between her eyebrows more pronounced. “Why can you say my name but I can’t say yours?”

Catra tried to scoff as well as she could under the circumstances, but Adora didn’t accept that, didn’t look away. And it was so much—Adora’s eyes, her weight on top of her, her short hair falling into her eyes, the smudge of dirt on her forehead that Catra itched to wipe off, and all at once Catra wanted to cry.

She looked away.

She thought Adora was reacting to her, at first, when she tensed on top of her.

“Did you hear that?” Adora whispered.

“Hear what?”

Adora put her hand over Catra’s mouth. Catra licked it. She was already smirking at the way she knew Adora would frown, tell her it was disgusting, but Adora didn’t. She hadn’t even reacted. She was still looking off in the distance. Toward the mountainside at the other end of the valley. Catra watched as her eyes went wide.

Adora looked down, slowly, and nodded her answer at the unspoken question in Catra’s eyes.

It was then Catra heard it, the whistle-like snorting sound of the monsters. Adora leaned over her and whispered in her ear. “Hasn’t seen us.”

Adora met her eyes again, and Catra nodded. They couldn’t move until Adora knew it couldn’t see them. It would take sixty, maybe a hundred seconds to run back to the truck. At least that long. If they ran while they were visible to it, they were an obvious target in this field, with no cover at all.

They waited like that in tense silence for several minutes, and then all at once, Adora was up in one fluid movement, pulling Catra behind her. Catra followed, running at full speed. She outpaced Adora, running around to the driver’s seat, pulling the door behind her closed as quietly as she could, watching Adora do the same on her side. It wasn’t until they were both inside that Catra realized she hadn’t even questioned Adora. She had reverted right back to their old rules, their old system. She had trusted Adora to know when to run.

 _Stupid_ , Catra thought. She was still so stupid. She didn’t need to rely on Adora anymore. Didn’t need anyone. And if she was going to feed her people through the winter, she needed those potatoes she harvested today. She couldn’t go back with _nothing_. 

Catra slammed on the breaks, jerking them both in their seats.

“What are you doing?” Adora said.

“Wait here.” Catra stopped with her hand on the handle. “If it comes back, leave without me. You have to get the truck back to them.”

Catra flung the car door open and ran down the line of potato plants she had harvested earlier that day.

She felt it before she even reached the potatoes. The wind at her back. The horrible whistling howls of the thing. _So this was how she’d finally die_ , Catra thought. What a stupid way to die.

She didn’t want to look at the dragon that killed her. She squeezed her eyes shut, standing in front of the meager harvest that wouldn’t keep anyone alive, anyway. She heard the dragon prepare its breath of fire. A sound like flame catching on propane, a flash—

Catra didn’t feel the blast, the wall of heat and light. She opened her eyes.

The truck was in front of her, blocking the wall of flame, deflecting it off to either side. As the inferno raged around her, Catra finally looked up at the creature who almost killed her. Its scales were deep red, an open wound, as if the dragon had been burned by her own fire.

Catra picked up the basket, opened the passenger door, and jumped in. As soon as she was in, Adora was moving, pushing the truck as fast as it would go.

“Was that—” Catra said, as she belted herself into the seat with shaking hands, “the dragon, that was—?”

“Shadow Weaver,” Adora said, voice laced with something deadly.

“What the _fuck_?” Catra said, voice squeaking high. “Is that goddamn dragon _tracking_ us?”

“I don’t know,” Adora said, “but I’ve been tracking _her_.”

“What?”

Adora nodded, hands tight on the wheel, eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror and back again. Catra twisted around to see. “She’s slow,” Catra said. They usually were after a blast like that.

Adora nodded, cut her eyes to Catra. “Did you lose your mind?”

“I told you to leave.”

Adora shook her head, then shot her a look that was somehow as smug as it was exasperated. “Hear them from the next ridge, huh?”

“Shut up, Adora.”

Adora laughed, silent, hunched forward in the seat like she could strain it to go faster. Once they reached the next bend she relaxed, sat back, and said, “You didn’t actually think I was going to leave you.”

“You had no problem leaving me before,” Catra said.

The truck whined as they started on the dirt hill that led to the castle. Catra’s teeth were on edge from the constant jerking as they tumbled over the dirt roads. She was still ultra-sensitive from the adrenaline. She felt like Adora’s driving would shake her apart, bone by bone.

“Is that why you did it?” Adora said finally. “To see if I would follow you?”

“No,” Catra said, wondering if that was, in fact, why she had done it. The thought was too humiliating to consider for long. “Turn left.”

Adora looked down at the truck when it whined, let off the gas, and then, looking in the rearview mirror, pressed the gas again, shifting hard. Adora gasped and brought a hand up to her mouth.

“What?” Catra twisted to look behind them, but there was still no sign of the dragon.

“S’nothing,” Adora said around her cut tongue. Adora showed Catra the blood on her index finger. “Bit my tongue.”

Catra turned away, nauseated, as the smell of Adora’s blood filled the truck.

* * *

After Catra first took the sword that day in the forest, she made it easier for Adora to follow her. Once, when Adora lagged too far behind and almost lost her, Adora found her waiting in the branches of a tree. When Adora finally reached her, gasping, pressing the stitch in her side, the girl smirked, one fang visible, and giggled.

They travelled for a week like that, taking the same path, the girl ahead, Adora following. Adora spent most of her time wondering what it was keeping the girl from letting Adora travel at her side and how she could fix it.

But it was the girl herself who upset the arrangement when one night she awoke Adora from her makeshift bed, nestled between the roots of a tree.

The girl clapped a hand over Adora’s mouth. Adora struggled until she recognized the girl’s voice at her ear. “Shh.”

Adora couldn’t see anything but the girl’s two glowing eyes. She wondered what the girl could see of her.

“It’s close,” the girl said, voice tight with fear, and Adora knew she meant a dragon.

The beating of the dragon’s wings was close enough to hear now—the softness of the sound at odds with its threat of violence. The beast snorted, once, twice. High-pitched, almost inquisitive. Adora felt the frequency of it travel up her spine as surely as if it could touch her.

Adora shot up. Where was it? Catra was pressed against her, tense, waiting. The trees were lush with leaves, blocking out the sky. The dragon must be there somewhere above the canopy, but Adora could see nothing but darkness.

“Where is it?” Adora said, standing up. The fear was a monster inside her, like the dragon itself had found its way under her skin.

“Shut up,” the girl hissed, furious, trying to press her hand to Adora’s mouth again.

But Adora was insensible with terror. She had to know where it was. She didn’t know which way to run if she couldn’t see it, so she ran anyway, desperate to _know_. She couldn’t breathe under the thick trees. Their branches bent around her, suffocating her. If only she could breathe. Her shoulder hit a tree trunk hard, and the pain helped her focus for a moment. She could make out more than darkness, in fact, by the dappled moonlight. There, close by, was a patch of unobstructed moonlight—a clearing. She ran to it. Maybe she could see where the dragon was. Maybe she could breathe, then.

She needn’t have worried about finding the dragon. It had already found her.

Before Adora could raise her eyes, she felt the wind of the creature’s wingbeats. She looked up, eyes stinging in the gusts.

The silhouette of the dragon in the moonlight was horrible. Its body writhed as if its own movements caused it pain. Its horrible wrenching muscles pulled its bat-wings, up and down, up and down. It was bigger than the clearing—the knife-points at each wing-tip skimmed the forest canopy on each descent. The fibrous skin stretched across each bone of the wing such that even moonlight poured through them, the veins inside on display.

The scales of the dragon were deep scarlet, and as its serpentine neck strained down below its still-beating wings, Adora wondered, at first, if it had dipped itself in blood before finding them in the forest.

Its eyes were alarming—two blank and gleaming white crescents. The dragon’s eyes pierced Adora, keeping her still, hypnotized. Adora’s defeat was inevitable. The dragon lowered its jaws. Two embers appeared behind its rows of teeth. Adora was entranced. Her fear had morphed and twisted into horrified wonder. The dragon had power; Adora had nothing. Adora _was_ nothing. Adora watched the dragon’s fire grow, and darken, and burn.

The impact came before Adora expected. She was tumbling through the grass, and there was light, and heat, and roaring louder than thunder. The heat and the light was everywhere, burning her eyes and her skin at once, tumbling together with her through the underbrush.

Adora must have passed out for a time, in fact, because when she became aware of things again, the dragon’s roar had ended and Adora’s arm was tingling. It had fallen asleep. Something was pressed against it.

Someone. The girl was pressed into her. Some tree branches had fallen on top of them, too.

Adora shook the girl. Her trance was over. They needed to run. They needed to hide. Adora couldn’t hear the dragon, but that didn’t mean it was far.

The girl’s eyes stayed stubbornly closed. She was on her side, looking smaller than she ever had. Adora brushed her hair off her face. “Wake up,” she hissed, but the girl didn’t listen. Adora tried to sit up so she could see the girl better, but her own feet were trapped by a thick tree branch.

Adora rolled the girl away from her and onto her back so that Adora could attend to the branch trapping her, first. The girl cried out as she settled on the forest floor. It was a horrible, broken sound.

The girl had saved Adora. And she had gotten hurt because of it.

“I’m sorry,” Adora whispered. She strained forward, but she couldn’t reach her. Adora propped herself up on her arms, shaking from the exertion, and pulled at her legs as hard as she could. She couldn’t do it; she had to do it. She pulled harder, feeling a sharper pain at her ankle. She fought through the pain, and all at once, her legs were free.

She sat there shaking and crying. She looked down at her legs. She could still feel them. In fact, other than the cut on her ankle where a particularly sharp bit of bark had sliced through, her legs were unhurt.

Adora crawled over to the girl. Her eyes were still closed. She was whimpering softly, hunching her shoulders up to her ears. “Are you okay?”

“It hurts,” the girl said, head shaking back and forth. She arched her back up from the ground.

Adora understood. She rolled the girl gently over so Adora could see her back. The back of her shirt was singed away the gaping edges blackened. The skin underneath red and mottled and gooey. The burn stretched from the middle of her back to the nape of her neck. Later, Adora would understand that this was a relatively mild burn, if a large one. She would retain all nerves in the skin. But her fur would never grow back, and the burn marks would never disappear. And at the time, it was the first burn Adora had seen, and she was terrified by the girl’s whimpering.

Adora couldn’t move her. They would have to hope the dragon moved on.

“It’s okay,” Adora said, petting the girl’s head. “It’s gunna be okay.” She said it over and over, until the sound of the words lost all meaning.

The dragon didn’t return. Adora made a little shelter from the fallen branches. She dabbed at the girl’s wound, trying to clean the dirt and leaves stuck to her raw skin. The girl did not abide much of this. She screamed when Adora tried to pick out a twig, so Adora gave up, and made the girl drink water instead.

“Is it really bad?” the girl said a few hours later. She turned her face so she could look at Adora.

“You’re gunna be fine,” Adora said.

“It really hurts,” the girl said, crying.

“I’m sorry,” Adora said, head sinking in shame. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t watching the sky.”

The girl squirmed around on the ground, reaching into her jacket. She hissed at Adora when she asked if she could help her. The girl finally settled on her side and slipped a hand into her inside jacket pocket.

She brought out the sword, showed it to Adora, and glared hard at her. “It doesn’t work,” she said, and used both hands to snap it in half. She let the pieces fall to the ground and fell back on her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Adora said. “I’m so sorry.” She kept herself from crying until the girl was asleep again.

The girl slept for several hours. When she started snoring, Adora bandaged the burn at her back by using her own jacket to tie across it. It felt wrong to press anything at all on the open wound, but it felt worse to Adora to leave it exposed. So she tied her own jacket as well as she could and hoped it would be enough. 

“What did you do?” Catra said, when she woke up again, turning her face against the earth to look at Adora. She bent her elbow up behind her, feeling the bandage at her own back.

Adora crouched beside her grabbed the girl’s hand. “Don’t touch it.”

Catra dropped her hand, sighing in annoyance and exhaustion. She frowned and looked at Adora. “You stayed.” Her voice was surprised, lacking the accusation that had laced everything else she had said.

“You’re hurt.”

“Yeah, whose fault is that?” the girl said, the accusation back.

“I’m gunna make it up to you,” Adora said. “I promise.”

The girl just shook her head and laid back down. She said something Adora couldn’t make out with her face pushed into the ground.

“What?” Adora said.

The girl huffed, twisted her face to the side. “I said,” she started, voice snide, “I guess the dragon’s gone, huh.”

“Yeah,” Adora said. And then—after they lapsed into silence, she ventured: “That was the biggest dragon I’ve ever seen.” Technically, it was the only dragon Adora had ever seen. Before she had only seen the results of their destruction. But there was no reason for the girl to know that.

The girl said nothing, but twisted her neck further, eyes searching above her. 

“Don’t be scared,” Adora said. “I’m watching the sky _and_ the ground now.”

“I’m not scared,” Catra said. “I’m bored.”

“That dragon was the meanest dragon, too,” Adora said, voicing the story she had been telling herself in her hours of boredom and anxiety. It was something she had been doing even while she was still at the orphanage. “Even the other dragons didn’t like her.”

The girl twisted to look at Adora’s face. She waited.

“She used to be a powerful dragon,” Adora continued, “but then she made a deal with the shadows, and she lost her power. So she couldn’t even fight the dragon hunters anymore. She started fighting kids instead. She ate hundreds of kids,” Adora swept her arm in a grand motion, relishing the dragon’s wanton destruction of strangers. “Until she met two girls. Adora,” she pointed at herself, “And—” she pointed at the girl.

“Catra,” she said, eyes wide and eager.

Adora nodded, trying to stifle her grin. She finally had gotten her name. “And Catra. The dragon—her name was—Shadow—Darkness—”

“That’s dumb,” Catra said.

“Darkness Evil-Wing.”

“That’s worse.”

“Shadow Wing!” Adora said.

The girl frowned. “Shadow Weaver.”

“Yes!” Adora said. “Shadow Weaver! Anyway, Shadow Weaver was no match for these two.”

Adora continued her story until Catra’s eyes dropped closed and she went to sleep.

“You’re still here,” Catra said when she woke up again.

“You’re still hurt,” Adora said.

Catra looked at her. Her hair was so messy, and somehow even bigger. “Okay,” she said, as if Adora had said something.

Adora grinned. “I won’t forget it. That you saved me. Next time, I’ll save you.”

Catra’s ears twitched toward Adora. Her eyes shone in a patch of sunlight. “You promise?” she said.

“I promise.”

Two days later, once Catra could walk again, she approached Adora. They had just raided an abandoned village, picked up old cans of whatever they could find, and Catra stopped her once they were off the roads again.

“Here.” Catra opened the palm of her hand for Adora to see. “Your dumb sword.”

Adora couldn’t believe it. Catra had saved the piece of the sword with the hilt. She’d put it on a necklace chain.

“You can wear it now,” Catra insisted, pushing her fist into Adora’s chest.

“But,” Adora started, “you said it didn’t work.”

Catra rolled her eyes. “I didn’t die, did I?” She twisted her fist around and opened it, dropping the sword, forcing Adora to take it before it fell.

“I gave it to you,” Adora said, even as she clutched it to her chest.

“I don’t need _luck_ ,” Catra said, insulted.

Adora slipped the necklace around her neck. She ran to catch Catra, throwing an arm around her neck. “We’re best friends now, right?”

Catra shrugged her off. “Ew, no, this is not because I like you.”

Adora rebuffed Catra’s attempts to throw her off and pulled her in for a real hug, setting her chin on Catra’s shoulder. “I wear the sword this week. Next week, your turn.”

Catra squeezed Adora’s waist and then pulled back. “Fine, whatever. Now come on, it’ll be dark soon. We have to keep moving.”

They kept moving, for years, until the dragons became too much for two girls to battle on their own, and they agreed to seek shelter at the Fright Zone, a compromise neither of them wanted, and one that Adora could never accept.

* * *

When Catra and Adora reached the castle, Adora told Glimmer she wanted to go on a jump immediately.

“This is what we’re for,” she said, leaning on the table toward Glimmer.

“Bow’s still hurt, and Perfuma’s not ready, Adora,” Glimmer said, rubbing her temple.

Adora paced behind the big meeting table. There was hardly any room here, between the chairs and the wall of fire-suits. In fact there was barely any room anywhere in the castle. Adora felt the old familiar anxiety—the walls closing in, time running out, hurtling toward disaster. Inevitable. She was nothing against the dragons. Shadow Weaver had almost hurt Catra. Again. The only way out was to _fight_. “The two of us can do it ourselves.”

“I’ve been practicing,” Scorpia said.

Adora startled—she had forgotten she was there. “It takes years.” Adora waved a hand, a dismissal.

Scorpia folded her arms across her chest. “I really don’t like your tone.”

“Glimmer,” Adora said, ignoring Scorpia, “we _have_ to. That dragon—I _know_ that dragon. It’ll come after us again.”

“Bow,” Glimmer said, turning to him. He was not healed yet, but he was up and moving now. “Tell Adora we can’t make decisions because she has a personal vendetta with a dragon.”

“It’s not a—vendetta—!” Adora sputtered.

Bow and Glimmer gave her twin looks of incredulity.

“It’s—look I know Shadow Weaver has been going back to Prime’s nest,” Adora started.

“Well, that’s your theory, A—“ Bow said.

“And so, if she’s hunting here, she could bring Prime to the castle,” Adora said. “We have to take her out before she can do that.”

Glimmer’s expression turned calculating. “If she is going back to Prime, that’s all the more reason not to hunt her yet.”

“Glimmer,” Bow said, a warning.

“We have to take out Prime,” Glimmer said to Bow. “It’s the only thing that matters.”

“Not the only thing,” he said.

Adora realized all at once. “You want to use the castle as _bait_?” her voice rose in outrage.

“No,” Glimmer said. “All I’m saying is that we follow Shadow Weaver back to Prime.”

“Every minute she’s still alive is a minute they’re all in danger,” Adora said.

“Not if we’re watching her the whole time,” Glimmer said.

Adora considered. “Fine. Let’s get to the chopper. We’re going now. Where’s Mermista?”

“All this time,” Catra drawled from the doorway, “and you’ve never learned to use your brain.”

“There’s no time,” Adora said, “she’s still close and—”

“You’re going to follow Shadow Weaver in your helicopter,” Catra said, “and just—what? Hope she doesn’t turn around and attack you.”

“This isn’t the first dragon we’ve killed,” Adora said.

“And how do you even know she’ll head to the nest now? How long are you going to tail her?” Catra rolled her eyes, turned to Glimmer. “You’re just trying to determine the location of Prime’s nest, right?”

Glimmer nodded.

“So why would you track her _personally_?” Catra said, eyebrows raised.

Adora threw her hands up. “How else—”

“With tech!” A blur of purple dropped from the ceiling and almost on top of Adora. Entrapta squealed and leaned into Adora’s face. “Don’t you have tracking devices?”

“Uh—tracking?”

Entrapta turned to Catra. “Do I have to explain what ‘tracking’ means to her?”

Catra smirked and leaned toward Entrapta conspiratorially, “Assume you have to explain _everything_ to her.”

Adora groaned. “I know what tracking means!”

Scorpia put a claw on Entrapta’s shoulder, explaining to Entrapta that Catra was joking.

“You have tracking devices?” Bow said, excited.

Entrapta nodded. “I’m 99% sure my device will stick to the scales of the dragons for at least six months. I can guarantee within the same accuracy a tracking radius of 106 miles.”

Glimmer’s eyes were wide. “That’s… amazing.”

Catra turned to Adora. “But you still want to jump out of an helicopter, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it!” Entrapta said. “Skydiving tactics to defeat the dragons have very poor results, statistically. In fact, I’ve been crunching the numbers, and the life expectancy of many so-called Angels is less than eighteen seconds.”

Adora watched Catra tighten her fists at her side, turn her body away from the group in the doorway. Adora had to fight every instinct not to approach her. It would only make things worse.

“But,” Glimmer said, “there’s still a problem. How do we attach it to the dragon?”

“I was hoping you would ask!” Entrapta brandished a weapon that looked like a rocket launcher. “I made this for that purpose. It has a range of 200 yards.”

“And how does the rocket work?” Glimmer said, lifting herself up from her seat to look at the weapon.

“No,” Catra said. “It’s our rocket. _We_ will get the tracker on her. Right, Scorp?”

Scorpia nodded, enthusiastic. “We’ve got this.”

Glimmer and Bow entered into an increasingly technical conversation with Entrapta about the possibilities with the launcher, but Adora was watching Catra as she slipped away. Adora followed.

She stopped in the middle of the entrance hall. Adora saw the upper edges of the old burn on her back licking up the nape of her neck. She longed to trace the edges with a finger. The hall was candlelit, lighting Catra’s brown fur ruddy.

“Thank you,” Adora said. “You’re right. It’s a—great idea.”

Catra shook her head, turned around, her tail flicking behind her. “And later? When you know where Prime is? What then?”

“Then we kill him and end this,” Adora said.

Catra scrunched her eyes closed. “Did it occur to you that you could just get as far away from him as possible?”

“You know we have to do something,” Adora said. “Your crops are failing.”

Catra flinched, took a step back.

Adora stepped forward.“If we don’t stop them, they’ll keep burning. They’ll burn everything we grow, and one day they’ll block out the sun for good. We have to.”

“So it’s better to die in a blaze of glory, huh?” Catra spat.

“It’s better to do everything I can to save you! I _promised_.” Adora could never make it up to Catra, could never pay her back for that first time Catra saved her, for being the first person in the world who had bothered to care. But Adora had to _try_.

Catra shook her head. “I never asked you to do any of this.”

Adora took out the sword from around her neck again, seeing Catra withdrawing. Adora held it in her hands, an offering to Catra, the same one as all those years ago. “I don’t know what we’ll do about Prime, okay? But look, please take this, when you go out to get the tracker on her.”

Catra clenched her jaw and backed away. “That old thing never worked, Adora.”

“Please,” Adora said, “I’ll feel better if—”

“You want to know why you found that in the Fright Zone?” Catra said.

Adora just stared at her. All at once, she didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t say that.

“I left it there on purpose,” Catra said. “I wanted you to find it. I wanted you to know to stay away from me.” Catra cut her eyes up to Adora’s, a flash of color and rage. “Do you understand?”

Adora did understand. Catra wanted nothing to do with her. Adora had been kidding herself, thinking they were reconnecting today in the fields. Adora had to let her go.

“Yeah,” Adora said, fist closing over the sword. “I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you to my sister for betaing yet another fic for me--on Christmas no less! <3
> 
> Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all those celebrating around now--and much love to those not celebrating and to everybody in this hard, wild year. I'm with my small quarantine family bubble today and really thinking of everyone who is alone and/or missing loved ones. Hope you're all taking care of yourselves out there. Maybe this will bring you an eensy bit of joy--writing it was extremely fun for me! Drop me a line if you liked/ are confused/ caught the Jurassic Park meme and Titanic references. XD

**Author's Note:**

> Has anyone out there seen the movie Reign of Fire? I'm not exactly recommending it, I'm just saying I watched it again not long ago and could not stop thinking about how good it would be as a Catradora AU. 
> 
> I love kudos/ comments- consider leaving one if you enjoyed/ hated/ have any thoughts. Hope you're all doing well as we hurtle into winter season--whether you celebrate holidays this time of year or no. <3 (Yes, I know I should be writing fluffy christmas stuff but here's a post-apocalypse fic)


End file.
